Skip to content

Quote wall: Natalia Ginzburg

Jg
Jg
— 1 min read

On the bulletin board above my desk, I keep a handful of quotes that have taught me something, or that I hope to learn from.

Here's one:

When I write something I usually think it is very important and that I am a very fine writer. I think this happens to everyone. But there is one corner of my mind in which I know very well what I am, which is a small, a very small writer. I swear I know it. But that doesn't matter much to me.

—Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues

This one I came across while reading Sally Rooney's novel Beautiful World, Where Are You; Rooney uses it as the epigraph to the novel.

I do not think of myself as an important or fine writer; I perhaps think too much of myself as that very small writer. But maybe I shouldn't all the time.

quote wall
Jg

Jg

Related Posts

Quote wall: Fred Rogers

On the bulletin board above my desk, I keep a handful of quotes that have taught me something, or that I hope to learn from. Here's one: When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong with the fearful,

Our little blue pixel

Carl Sagan's message about the "pale blue dot" is, I think, the single most beautiful and important piece of writing I've ever encountered. Here's how it begins: Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard

Quote wall: Jane Smiley

On the bulletin board above my desk, I keep a handful of quotes that have taught me something, or that I hope to learn from. Here's one: I believe that you either love the work or the rewards. Life is a lot easier if you love the work. —Jane Smiley